Beuchert, Jonas, Matthes, Amanda and Rogers, Alex
2023.
SNAPPERGPS: Open hardware for energy-efficient, low-cost wildlife location tracking with snapshot GNSS.
Journal of Open Hardware
7
(1)
10.5334/joh.48
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Abstract
Location tracking with global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), such as GPS, is used in many applications, including the tracking of wild animals for research. Snapshot GNSS is a technique that only requires milliseconds of satellite signals to infer the position of a receiver. This is ideal for low-power applications such as animal tracking. However, there are few existing snapshot systems, none of which is open source. To address this, we developed SNAPPERGPS, a fully open-source, low-cost, and low-power location tracking system designed for wildlife tracking. SNAPPERGPS comprises three parts, all of which are open-source: (i) a small, low-cost, and low-power receiver; (ii) a web application to configure the receiver via USB; and (iii) a cloud-based platform for processing recorded data. This paper presents the hardware side of this project. The total component cost of the receiver is under $30, making it feasible for field work with restricted budgets and low recovery rates. The receiver records very short and low-resolution samples resulting in particularly low power consumption, outperforming existing systems. It can run for more than a year on a 40 mAh battery. We evaluated SNAPPERGPS in controlled static and dynamic tests in a semi-urban environment where it achieved median errors of 12 m. Additionally, SNAPPERGPS has already been deployed for two wildlife tracking studies on sea turtles and sea birds.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Date Type: | Publication |
| Status: | Published |
| Schools: | Schools > Computer Science & Informatics |
| Publisher: | Western University |
| Date of First Compliant Deposit: | 4 February 2025 |
| Last Modified: | 04 Feb 2025 12:11 |
| URI: | https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/173417 |
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